You Heard What Dad Said
by morning.chickenhead
Summary: Upon being locked up by Bobby, and by Dean - the ultimate betrayal - Sam's mind is tugged into the spiral of a past of secret prisons. Wincest implications throughout; I will place a note at the beginning of chapters which contain more explicit Wincest.
1. family

It was far too familiar here. A place of waking in the night with sweat and tears and young spilled seed. Damp then not only in the old quilts piled in the far corner, but also in the air. A dank and cold hung over Sam now just as it had then. His lips dry, he forced them open with his tongue and murmured a familiar word to assure himself of continued existence with the sound of his own voice. "Dean…"

And here the word echoed, gracing Sam with the apparition of multiple existences. He wished one, a different one than that which he whispered seconds ago, would fly back into his slightly open mouth so he could swallow a new truth, a new past, one unsullied by pain, passion, love, confusion, and guilt – all those wonderfully horrible characteristics of multiple or individual existences in the hell called Earth.

But the echoes only packaged themselves in unseen water droplets and hung static in the air far above his open mouth, a teasing taste of all that made him hard in his deepest secret places – it was far too familiar here where Sam's hand instinctively fell and brushed lightly in a chase of pleasure, then – yet also a bitter reminder of the betrayal he suffered now, of all that hardened the liquid casing around his heart into iron armour – then, gripping himself hard, protectively. And as he gripped himself, sweat or tears pouring down the side of his face, the little droplets hanging in the air began to pop. One. By. One.

"Dean!" shrilled the first. _How could you leave me here?_

"Dean." whispered the second. _You'll come back to take care of me…_

"Dean!" cried the next in panic. _…won't you??_

"Dean!" ……

And what Sam wanted more than anything was for Dean to free him from the prison to which he was confined long before Dean and Bobby put him here – to free him from the prison of his body, heart, mind, and soul, the prison which would fail to be a prison if only Dean would acknowledge it, and come back, _please come back, please come…_


	2. stands

"You heard what Dad said."

Sam imagines that the point of Dean's finger thrust into his lower back is the threatening mouth of a rifle.

But Dean's voice is harsh even in reality as he leads his little brother from behind toward the basement of the old house. And Sam is much less confident when he emerges from his imagination. He dawdles then whimpers when Dean pokes him again.

"Yes, I heard what Dad said," he says in a small voice, "but I don't understand why he's leaving me here."

"Us," Dean corrects him bitterly. "He's leaving _us._"

At Sam's huge glassy eyes turned toward him, Dean relents and explains further. "Look, Dad is renting this place so we don't have to move around with him for awhile. Aren't you happy about that, Sammy?"

Dean's voice is grudgingly warmer now, and Sam nods. Sam hates moving all the time.

"But I still don't understand why I have to stay in the basement while you get to be upstairs." Now standing in the half-open door at the bottom of the stairs which grin up at Sam with their worn gold carpeting, he tries to look sad and scared so Dean won't get fed up with his questions.

He doesn't succeed. "You don't have to understand," Dean grumbles impatiently, "when it's your father's orders."

Dean turns over a bucket and gives Sam a look to tell him what it's for, then nods to a pile of moth-eaten blankets in the corner. "You won't get cold." Then he pulls on the corded metal chain controlling the dim output of a single bare bulb in the bare ceiling. Sam isn't tall enough to reach it. Except maybe by standing on the bucket, he realizes. He's annoyed that his logical mind is already adjusting to a life in a dingy basement.

All this is over in a few seconds, and his brother's face disappears behind the door. "You always wanted your own bedroom," Dean shouts.

Then, as the lock clicks into place, he says more quietly, sadly, "Don't worry. I'll be back to take care of you…"


	3. inside

That evening, John and Dean sit uncomfortably at the card table, trying to enjoy their warmed canned stew from the pot.

John clears his throat.

"I love your brother, Dean."

Dean gulps hard. This is going to be one of those conversations just as embarrassing for the listener as for the talker, he can tell.

"I love him more than I can say," John continues. Then pauses. "And…I love you too, son."

Dean gulps again, this time with peas, carrot, and gravy in his mouth. The food is a decent distraction from this weirdness. Not that it's all that weird. As far as Dean knows, the basement prison is protection for Sam. His dad is always trying to keep him and Sam – _especially _Sam – out of the way of evil ceatures and "presences," as he sometiems calls them.

So maybe it's for Sam's own good. That's all.

And right then John echoes Dean's thoughts. "It's for Sam's own good."

Direct, and not being contrary, Dean asks with his mouth full, "What's so good about it?"

John's turn to swallow hard – and he hasn't taken a bite for a full minute. Very unusual.

He leans forward. His face is etched with concern and seriousness. "There's something after your brother," he confesses. "Something – terrible."

Dean pretends to be skeptical by cocking a single eyebrow.

"What is it – a changeling mother or something? Or maybe a plain old vampire with a penchant for adorable children?"

"This is no laughing matter, Dean," John inserts gravely. "This is something much worse. It's…"

Dean regards him expectantly. What could be worse than a changeling mother? Dean shivers.

"Well…it's something inside of…inside of him."


	4. the key

What a bare-faced lie.

It's something terrible inside of him, of course, not inside of sweet little Sam.

But what else can he tell his son, a child?

If he's never told Dean make-believe stories before, he'll do it now.

In his brief childhood, Dean saw no shortage of evil, starting with his mother's ceiling pyre. John himself saw nothing worse before that day, and nothing worse after but the betrayal of his own body, which at best senses in Sam the essence of his dead mother implanted in him with bits of ash, and which at worst always had a penchant for adorable children, but hid it even from him for the power of the guilt that would destroy him and his family.

But now, with his beautiful family unit destroyed by external means over which John had no control, his fangs emerge on a daily basis. His tendencies no longer hide from him.

Still, John is determined to hide them from Dean.

And even more so to hide them from Sam.

To protect Sam from them.

Because he truly, really, for whatever reason, loves Sam more than he can say. Loves him strongly, not just wrongly. And he can't let that love be used as a weapon that might destroy the object of his love.

Whether that determination is altruistic, and truly for Sam's own good, or self-serving and actually for John's own good, even John can't tell. All he knows is Sam _must _be kept out of sight and out of mind, and that Dean must hold the only key to that basement.

Dean holds they only key.

"And I love you too, son," he quietly repeats.


	5. concealing

"You heard what Dad said."

These words echo in Sam's head.

In fact, he can't remember what Dad said. He was eavesdropping as usual when Dad's words were said, but the shock of them must have erased his memory.

Now these words and these words only are confined to Sam's mind – _You heard what Dad said – _giving him the mild comfort of Dean's harsh voice (it makes him feel less alone) but also reminding him of the betrayal of the older brother up to whom he always looked from the very day he was born. (_How could he leave me here?_)

The words spin in his head and make him very dizzy.

He barely makes it to the old milk pail. His puke is red and purple and burns his throat. He imagines he was fed a poison that makes one puke up one's own heart. At a creaking from the stair outside he flings a quilt over the bucket, not wanting to admit to the embarrassment of a frightened child's vomit.

It's Dean at the door, balancing a pot in his hand and a plastic cup of water in the crook of his elbow. Sam is still clutching the edge of the blanket with white, sweaty palms. "Dad said to bring you this." Dean passes Sam the pot and produces a spoon from his shirt pocket. "But," he continues, concealing a glint in his eye, "if I were you I'm not sure _I_ would eat it."

Sam pauses, his fingers poised above the inch of gelatinous stew, ready to take a taste. "Why, what's wrong with it?"

"Oh, _I_ don't know…" Dean turns for the door, whistling slowly and innocently.

After he leaves, Sam dumps the pot in the corner furthest from the pile of blankets trying to be a bed and lets the spoon clatter beside it. Flinging the quilt off the bucket, he ralphs again, then rinses his mouth with a gulp from the glass of water. The poison probably isn't far off, he thinks, realizing he is now at the mercy of Dean and his cruel little jokes – chile peppers, Old Spice, maybe a chopped-up old shoelace?

More annoyed than sad or scared at the moment, he crawls into the pile of blankets and pretends to sleep.

Then he realizes no one is watching.

And then he is sad and scared.


	6. both love and hate

Right now Dean hates both his brother and his dad.

He hates his brother because even when he's out of sight he still gets all the attention. He hates his dad because he doesn't really believe that there's something terrible inside sweet little Sammy, and he doesn't like being kept in the dark – even though, unlike Sammy, he doesn't persist in asking annoying questions until he gets to the truth; it's enough for Dean to know he doesn't know the truth.

Then again, he hates his brother because he _believes _his dad, and he's scared of Sam now, and therefore he hates his dad for giving him the dirty job of taking care of his brother, the potentially evil changeling.

But Dean also loves both his brother and his dad.

He loves his brother and wants his brother to share with him the secrets of what's inside him. He loves his father and wants him to pay him more attention.

He loves his brother and teases and tortures him to keep him alive – to keep himself alive – as the dankness of the basement, Sam's strange prison, threatens to consume them both. And he loves his father because he fears what he is capable of, like putting his son in a prison and assigning his other son guard duties – a fear different than his fear of Sam, because Dean is fairly certain there is nothing terrible inside his dad, yet still he is capable of fearsome things – and anyone capable of inspiring such dread is worthy of some respect.

Right now, while Dean's dad is still at the house preparing for his next job by making silver bullets, Dean neglects his guard duties during the day, much to his dad's chagrin, and tries to get in on the excitement of the silver bullets instead.

"Dean, get this soup down to your brother – _now!_"

Right now, while Dean's dad is still at the house preparing for his next job by lying on his bed for a few hours during the night, Dean sneaks down to the basement where his brother is also dozing, lies beside him, and puts his arm around him.

"Dean . . . you'll be back to take care of me . . . won't you?"

Sam is talking in his sleep.

So that he won't wake him up, Dean doesn't answer.


	7. in shadows

John is safer out in what he calls the field.

He's safer when he's killing things – terrible things outside of him, things he imagines are the things inside of him. He grows stronger with each kill, returning that much closer to normalcy. He grows stronger with each injury, receiving with grace the burning pain that can absolve the guilt he feels over the strange feelings inside of him.

Yet he grows weaker with each kill, being drawn deeper and deeper into a web of violence, pleasure only with inflicting pain. And he grows weaker also with each injury, spinning himself into an old man with an impending death and nothing to leave his children but a solitary life in this legacy of violence.

Still, it is here where he is safe from inflicting that pain on his children, at least immediately. There is only a shadow of his true desires that hangs over Sam, and an apparition of failure haunting Dean as he puzzles over why his dad doesn't love him as much as he loves Sam.

And as Sam sits in his prison of confusion, thinking that his daddy hates _him, _Dean doesn't realize how lucky he is to not earn just the kind of love Sam does from their dad.


End file.
